Translation

Not one person here this week has not been touched in some way by translation. Alfredo's facebook post was "That Art is a translation machine!" Would you believe that in the High Priests' Quorum the Words of Counsel were read in six--count 'em--six languages. Everyone who speaks is routinely cautioned to "Speak slowly for the translators."

So those are some of the ways translation impacts us. But let's go deeper. Because I think we can use the idea to help us go there.

We really are all engaged in a process of translation. We're all trying to understand what this or that word means. We're all working harder to interpret (translate?) important concepts. A good translator needs a good ear; but more, they need an openness to listen, to let the deeper meaning come in to their understanding.

As we confer together we regularly bump into words or ideas that we may think we understand, but that now appear to have more possible meanings. We're hearing that a word that has been perfectly clear to us for years and years just might mean something quite different in another culture.

I spent a very long time in the aisle talking about just what is the right preposition to go in the phrase "baptized __ water." Is it in, or by, or with, or something else? I'd been a bystander a few hours earlier about that exact phrase. Is the correct Spanish word con, or de, or por, or en?

You see what I mean? And today we talked about paragraph three: Having been baptized and confirmed, become fully immersed in the servant life of Christ. How do you plan to translate that in your life?

That's going to be the challenge. Even if we manage to navigate, with the help of translation, all these good words, unless we can make them live in the days and years and life ahead of us, we'll have missed the point. But we're doing such a wonderful job this week, I look forward with great hope to what lies ahead. I'll meet you there.

Posted by Marion